Just come accross this apologies if it has been posted before but: http://leapmotion.com/ For those too lazy to click this is a device which uses hand gestures to control your PC/Mac. Kind of like using a touch screen in mid air. Promo video is interesting, always wanted to play angry birds with chopsticks on my pc.. Anyway even if this device is for real can it really work so seamlessly as shown in the vid? -Fused
Yes I saw it a few weeks ago online. Said to be much more precise than eggs box kinect. The price is great. This is not so great... "A limited number of Leap devices are available for immediate pre-order. Your credit card will not be charged until your Leap is shipped. You can cancel your order at any time. We are estimating that these units will ship in December (2012) or January (2013). " The wording suggests units are available for immediate pre-order... units will ship in december or jan 2013. Doesn't sound very immediate to me.
At first I was amazed at the part where it shows Spoiler the user controlling the plane with his hands and of course, the chopstick angry birds moment! It looks promising, I will be definitely buying one if they hit the shops! EDIT: The only thing I can't imagine is the reliability of the product, I assume there will be flaws where it won't be able to keep up with you as everything flows constantly I haven't personally used a motion sensor such as the kinect so I don't know how responsive it is and if it will be on par with the leap motion, who knows?
The kinect is actually far more advanced than many people realise hence it's modding and use by scientific communities and now allegedly it's going into space to aid spacecraft docking.
This is a silly idea. Your arm will be tired, you can't point precisely, and you can't work. This idea (same for controlling the PC with Kinect), is like these companies that closed down, that were making the power glove type product for the PC. While, unlike Nintendo Power Glove, it actually worked ('cause you know.. technology allowed it to be better, as light, and small), but it failed.. big time.
I've always thought that something like this would be useful when combined with a keyboard and mouse. I don't see it as a replacement, as stated above your arms would be knackered if this was your sole input method. I see this more as something being used in the way keyboard shortcuts are. Simple and intuitive air gestures to navigate through an o/s. close windows, switch tabs, minimize, etc. Quicker and more ergonomic than using keyboard shortcuts. Something that I always found lacking in a keyboard / mouse setup was that in order to use one you have to stop using the other. something like this device could take over some mousing duties keeping hands closer to the keyboard.
We use the Kinect at the Bristol Robotics Lab on some of our robots... A couple of the guys on my degree were debating this device, the this we weren't sure on was the viewing angle shown by the video and the thickness of the device... Personally we think that's a demo video and its still in development and this is just trying to get more funding...
By the way.. all those people who say they would be knackered waving arms around... you might wanna go see a doctor because unless you have a muscle disease or weak heart you should be able to move your arms around without getting tired. I used a shitty SRW-S1 floaty wheel for 3 days and was able to drive holding the wheel up for hours without fatigue.
To anyone with lack of vision then yes it would. This is just the beginning for this tech and it's great to see something that will enable more natural interaction. Sculpting virtual clay using hand movement is the dream of many digital 3d artists. You may dismiss this as a toy but that simply indicates a problem you have being unable to see the potential and being quick to dismiss new tech.
I want it!!!! That would enable me to actually look at designing a pc case simply, because the tablets I have tried with the pen's are not that good for me, and the mouse is useless for me so this would be perfect. Will have to wait and see though. This does look good though for this type of tech and should make things progress further and faster.
how long do you use your computer for a day? How long can you keep your arms help out in front of you? I imagine your elbows rested on something while you had the wheel.
